Enpowering ourselves by taking it back…and calling us (each other that). But you can’t use it.

What kind of lunacy is that?

In this case Elizabeth wins. She has got it right…why would you call yourself something that you don’t want other people to call you?

Doesn’t that just sound backwards?

So, what you grew up with your family members using it. So, what!

Like your family members ain’t never been wrong about anything. And everything they did and said was right. Grow up…and get a brain.

Now, here’s Whoopi‘s view on the “N” word…

Here is what Rev Al Sharpton had to say about the use of the “N” word…and Jesse Jackson‘s use of the word in regards to black people.

How can we command respect from others if we cannot respect ourselves enough to stop continually abusing ourselves by using a word that is offensive and has been used offensively towards us…and was originated to demean, belittle and insult us?

There is no such thing as “taking it back”…because we weren’t the ones who originated the “N” word. It was a word targetted against us meant to keep us in our place.

For Jesse Jackson to have gotten caught on national television belittling black people in America by calling them the “N” word and talking in such a way as to what he would like to do to Obama was glaringly offensive to us all as moral decent human beings.

After getting in front of national cameras many times saying that the “N” was a word that is wrong and should never be used by anyone…well, you pick the adjective…hypocritical (somehow that word sounds a bit weak in regards to Jesse Jackson)…and even more so in regards to what that one word has done to us as a group.

Just listen to us on these clips. And they symbolize the intelligent rational black folk…from Whoopi and that other woman on the View, to Jesse Jackson, to Al Sharpton, to Dr. Alvin Poussaint and Bill Cosby. Yet they are so far apart in their thinking on this subject…that it is frightening.

How can one word have so much power… or conjure up so much pain and ill will…and division?

So, then why would anyone or any group of people want to hold onto such a word?

African-Americans are as messed up as a group of people can be in regards to this word…and the reason is as Elizabeth, Dr. Poussaint and Bill Cosby state…home training.

Listen to Whoopi Goldberg and the other black woman on the View…she says ‘she grew up in a home that used it’ and that she uses it.

Whoopi says that saying it is okay because it gives us power.

What?????

They, Whoopi and that other black woman on the View, have been desensitized to the word probably from growing up with it and hearing it all of their lives…as well as probably most of those rappers and three-quarters of the other black folk in this country. As well as, many other people today who hear it on the videos, in the movies, in our personal language among each other, in the locker room, classroom, school hallways etc…everywhere.

Not only rappers, or Jesse Jackson…but professional black folk use it…athletics…preachers…you name it…they indulge in the use of the “N” word.

There is some cultural relevance to this…it is called “self-hate.”

We still have it…no matter what we say.

Why else use that word and continue to allow it to perpetuate as if it is a cultural norm acceptable only when we say it?

There is something ill-logic with that thinking.

I grew up in a home that didn’t use the “N” word…nor did my parents…or most our relatives curse or swear.

So, therefore, I am not desensitized by the word. It will provoke me to become angry…and I don’t want anybody…white or black or otherwise calling me by it. And I don’t want them thinking it…and I can tell that too…and there are ways. It is in the body language and certain behavors that make it quite evident.

I once got on the bus travelling to New York City a while back. A young hispanic guy got on the bus that day at the same time I boarded…during the whole ride he was at the back of the bus talking very very…very loudly. And every other word out of his mouth was the “N” word…and I do mean every other. It irritated me.

It irritated me so badly that I had put into my mind…that if he said the word one more time there was going to be a racial incidence on that bus because I was going to get up…and we would have to go at it.

Now, what you need to know is this…anytime I put something into my mind to do…I do it.

And things were not going to be pretty on that bus…because I had already decided upon it. The good thing for him…as the thought came into my mind…the bus pulled into his stop and he got off.

I consider myself to be a nice person but there are somethings I am just not tolerant of…I am not tolerant of the “N” word out of anybody’s mouth. To speak it in my presence is like speaking a curse word.

We really have to grow up…it is not time to get over that word. But time to release it…and let it die.

I have felt guilty since I wrote that blog about not taking my iron tablets. I mean…I really have. It may seem like such a little thing to have bothered me. But the next day I started thinking about having made that statment…about not taking the tablets…but who does what they are suppose to anyways.

I started thinking about how all I have to take is this one little tablet. It doesn’t make me queazy or up-set my stomach…or any of those things. All it does is add some much needed iron to my system to aid in increasing my red blood cells. No biggy.

When you think of all the different types of medication that people are forced to take daily…because they have to…they have no choice in the matter. What do I have to complain about…not that I was complaining.

But, my goodness…I am blessed.

So, why not take the one little pill that I am suppose to take?

When you think of the type of money people have to spend on medication in this country…it is unbelievable. I have a friend who informed me that one bottle of something that she needs costs $300. Wow…

And all I have to take is a simple over the counter…less than $3.00 iron tablet.

It is very foolish of me to be so lackadaisical in taking something that might prevent me from ever having to spend $300 on something to correct that which I could have prevented simply by taking my little under $3.00 tablet today. And that is why I have been kicking myself…after saying what I wrote in that blog…I realized just how foolish I was…and have been.

In the mid-80’s I lost my cousin Vincent to AIDS. He had to take over 30 different pills a day. One of the tablets he had to take was a bright yellow pill…which he had to take because he somehow contracted a parasite that only birds normally got.

I recall think as he held up the pill telling me about it and why he had to take it…I recalled thinking-

“My goodness he can’t even walk into a pet shop without walking out without something.”

I didn’t at that time quite understand AIDS…as most people did not at that time. But I realized that living in New York City he could not even walk between a flock of peigons eating drops of bread without fearing getting something…that might mean taking another pill.

Since, I only have that one little pill to take…and really it is good for me to take. Yesterday, I took my iron tablet for the very first time in a long time. And now that I’m thinking of it…I better take it while it is still on my mind. So, excuse me…hope you had a good day. Its been hot here…and I am definitely thinking about the beach.

Have a good one….and… God bless….

ps…well, technically you can see I am really catching on to this stuff…but it doesn’t hurt to be able to write code either (html)…baby, all those classes are paying off!!!

And thank you all for reading…don’t forget to share this blog site… www.bsmith101.wordpress.com …with your friends, family, co-workers, the people on your block…your next door neighbor…your church…everybody…the people in the grocery store…the cashiers at the movie theater…the man down the street….even your ex….and don’t forget you can holla at a sisah every so often.